Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicles #72: Alligators

Visitors and Guests.

In the fall of 1973 it seemed like we had an unending stream of visitors and guests at West Colton. You could count on almost everyone in the SP operating hierarchy who made more than ten cents an hour showing up several times a month. Bob Thruston the Division Superintendent and Arnold Bays were out at West Colton every week. RGT was a frequent visitor on Saturday mornings.

R L King, the general Manager and W J Lacy the Assistant General Manager were there for days at a time for the first several months. So were a number of the people who had been on the West Colton design team. All of them were full of advice. All of them had a million questions.

Both King and Lacy liked to hang out right up there on the third floor of the tower where the work was getting done. However, there were two other locations that had been specifically set up for visitors. First, there was the VIP office on the second floor. A large, paneled office with the only window in the east side of the building on that floor. I had a small office on that side of the second floor. My office as well as the offices for all of the other ATSs had no windows.

Along the north wall of the second floor facing the hump were McClanahan’s, Jansen’s and Norm Farrens (the mechanical Assistant Terminal Superintendents) offices. There was an observation veranda with a bay window adjacent to McClanahan and Jansen’s offices. This veranda had a table and phones and radios right there. This veranda was right under the hump yardmasters desk and had an excellent view of the hump.

There were chairs and tables in the tower located just to the left or west of the crest yardmaster’s consol and desk. That was my personal choice if I was not glued to the planner’s desk. Our CRT tube and keyboard were at the desk in the glass walled office, which is located behind all of the other workstations up on the third floor.

Then there was the observation deck, outside on the roof overlooking the Bowl, the one spot car repair facility and the diesel service facility. That was a nice place to stand and eat my sandwich at the end of a long shift. You could watch the sunrise over the Chinese wall from there.

If King and Lacy were not right there at West Colton in person, they were there on the phone. I was talking to King every morning that I was on duty. He always asked the same question. “How many cars have you got over the hump so far, today?” If you did not have a decent hump count, then he wanted a detailed explanation of why not. Sometimes I hated to hear that phone ring in the morning.

On this particular Thursday evening, Mr. King was hanging out at West Colton. He was right up there in the planner’s office at the second desk. Right across the isle from my desk there in the glass walled office. I was talking to my assistant trainmaster in charge of mechanical operations on the phone. He was down at the one spot. In our typical West Colton short hand jargon, while inquiring as to the number of carmen working on that shift in the receiving yard, I asked: “How many have you got on the ground in the receiving yard?”

When he heard this, King bounded out of his chair. “ Don’t tell me now we have a derailment in the receiving yard,” he demanded. I had to explain to RLK that I was just using West Colton jargon.

Alligators were another little short hand commonly used in talks between West Colton Supervisors. McClanahan liked to say that it was hard to remember your original objective when you were hip deep in alligators. All of the ATSs began to refer to unforeseen problems as alligators.

One afternoon as I walked up to the third floor to relieve Gerald at the planner’s desk he looked a little harassed. Strange too, for by my initial survey of the yard as I drove in to work, we were actually in pretty good shape. Gerald had my turnover sheet and my inventory lists all ready for me. After a quick glance through them confirmed that the yard was indeed in very good shape, I asked Gerald if there were any alligators? “There is, …just one.” said Gerald with a sort of a wild-eyed look. “It is W J Alligator. (Lacy) He has been down on McClanahan’s veranda all afternoon watching the hump. He has been calling up here every time the hump stops and asking for details. He is driving me nuts. Now you can deal with him, I’m going home.”

To this day we still refer to Lacy as The Alligator.

mdo
10/13/04



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/16 11:52 by mdo.

Nice story. You tell them very well and I always enjoy reading them.
Steve in San Diego

That is the best I have heard for what people used to call Lacy. You are being too kind.

I think he did more damage to the employee-employeer relationship on the SP than anyone in its history. What ever was left, Moyers destroyed years later along with the company itself.


Nudge

Mad Dog, maybe you have another career waiting as a guestlecturer in MBA programs on "How to get a company to self-destruct!" Wonder how many of those bright eyed boys and girls would listen? Or if the Academic Sages would even let you talk? When I teach High School Econ classes, I always do some stuff on business practices. Mind if I use your stories as examples?

lacys raiders attacked everyone, he made a mistake of jumping aboard a caboose without identifying himself and got thrown off lacy also caused R L KIng to have a working vacation to protect his job and my dad told me it was the reason his health went bad.

There are Alligator stories in the San Francisco General Office as well.  I'll let Mike leadoff...